


Your Wound, Our Sutures

by Hedgi



Series: Kevlar and Bubblewrap [2]
Category: Big Hero 6 (2014)
Genre: Alive!Tadashi, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Aunt Cass is awesome, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Team as Family, more tags to come
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-10-06
Packaged: 2018-04-22 16:54:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4843109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hedgi/pseuds/Hedgi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to "The Only Pay-off"</p><p>Things have been sliding back to normal, but trauma doesn't simply vanish, and Tadashi isn't the only one with scars from his ordeal. As the team grows closer and weighs their options, it's clear that some of them aren't healing, and some are still holding secrets close.<br/>And then everything gets worse, again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Back From Where I’ve Been

**Author's Note:**

> Oh hey. Look, I have returned! Finally. It’s nice to be back, though, and I hope y’all are still with me! This is the sequel to “The Only Pay-off” and as such, should be read after that one if you haven’t already. I’ve got what I hope is a fun story planned, and I’m going to try to do updates every other week at the least, but with a new job and a ton of other stuff for other fandoms and my own original fiction…at least I’m not sick anymore! Ok, sorry to babble, off we go!

 

_It was dark, the huge room filled with eerie red light that didn’t seem to have a source. Hiro couldn’t breath, couldn’t feel his feet, his hands, couldn’t move, not even to blink, but he didn’t have to. Around him was rubble, collapsed support beams and chunks of cement pocked with scars from the microbots, from Wasabi’s blades, from being hurled into walls. Hiro knew every inch of what was around him, even with his eyes locked on one person, his vision blurring and his hearing muffled._  
_He’d seen this all before, night after night after night. Always the same. He knew it was a dream, the logical, aware part of his brain screamed that this was wrong, that this was over, that this was done, but at the same time it was almost like living it for the first time, something like adrenaline coursing through his veins, anger and fear and desperation all melting together._  
_“It’s over, Krei,” he said, knowing that it was wrong, but unable to deviate. This time, like every time he’d seen it in his dreams, when the man stood, his face revealed, Honey Lemon did not gasp from above, Go Go didn’t tackle him without warning, Wasabi did not sway like he wanted to vomit, Fred didn’t shout out demanding a surrender._  
_This time, they were with the rubble, bodies broken. This time, he had failed._

Wake up, _Hiro ordered himself but couldn’t, and the fuzziness at his vision swept through his whole body, as if to say,_ no. This is real, it is all real, and you are alone.  
  
_“Where’s my brother?” he demanded of the Yokai, who was morphing now, Callaghan’s face twisted with shadow, his hands and coat shifting into tendrils of microbots._  
“Too late,” the voice rang from everywhere, permeating the room like the light, a terrible truth, “Too late. You should have been better, Hiro, should have been smarter, should have worked harder.” And the shadows pulled away.  
“How could you? How could—Where is my brother?  _What did you do to him?” Hiro dropped, or rather, the floor did, because he was on the ground, and he could feel the cold of it, the sharp gravel pressing on his legs—you couldn’t feel that in dreams, could you? But no, this was a dream, he knew it was a dream, because Tadashi wasn’t dead, Tadashi was alive and alive and alive and not lying there in the red glow, eyes vacant, clothing bloodstained._

 _It wasn’t true, it wasn’t true, it couldn’t be true but Callaghan was laughing and he couldn’t move, couldn’t tear his eyes from where his brother’s chest wasn’t rising._  
And then the light turned to flames, swallowing the world.  
  
He woke, breathing hard, sweat gluing his shirt to his back and chest. The room was dimly lit by a nightlight in one corner, the blinds open to admit the orange glow from the streetlight below and the moon above, bright where it broke through the wisps of fog. Hiro blinked, trying to use the breathing pattern Baymax had told him about, flexing his fingers as if to be certain they all still worked. He glanced over to Tadashi’s bed, tugged over close to his, and sighed. The lump of covers shifted with the older boy’s breathing, the fat pile of fur that was their cat curled up close to his side.  
It was ok. Tadashi was alive. It had only been a dream.  
But it had been so close to a reality. Hiro knew that it was mostly luck—a miracle—that had saved his brother. If he and the others had been just a day later—or if they’d been a little more careless, if he’d been a little less prepared—they all might have died. And it would have been his fault, as much as Aunt Cass told him not to blame himself.  
Hiro slid himself up against the wall, hugging his knees. He wouldn’t cry. It was only a dream. It was just a stupid nightmare, not real, not—

“Hiro?” a voice broke through his concentration. Hiro looked over at Tadashi, leaning up on his stronger arm and peering at him through the thin light. “Are you—are you ok?”

“’m fine.” Hiro lied through his teeth. Tadashi knew it. He leaned up and turned on the light, the lamp filling the room with a soft, pinkish-yellow glow, warm and comforting.

“Were you dreaming?” Tadashi asked, still keeping his voice down.

“It’s nothing.” Hiro said again. Tadashi had worse dreams, he was sure. Tadashi had been the one who got kidnapped, who got hurt, while Hiro hadn’t even looked for him. Sometimes, his older brother still woke up gasping, or crying out, fumbling for the light and trembling for long, tense minutes until Mochi could calm him, or Cass came running up the stairs with a mug of tea, or Hiro tried to remind him that he was home.  
“Doesn’t look like nothing,” Tadashi said. “ Do you want to tell me about it?” He hoped Hiro would. Hiro hadn’t shared much of any of the things that clearly haunted his dreams, but this was the third night in a row.

“No.” Hiro shrugged. “I just…can’t sleep.”

“Hiro.”

“Really, I’m—I’m fine, it’s nothing, it’s just…”

Tadashi slipped out from under his coverlet and padded over, his thick wool socks making no noise. He sat on the edge of Hiro’s bed.

“It’s ok not to be fine. That’s what they keep telling me, and it was—it was bad for you, too.”

Hiro shook his head, but finally closed his eyes. It was easier to admit, in the warm little room, just the two of them and Mochi. He couldn’t tell Aunt Cass, or the others, or the therapist that Fred had found and apparently paid for. But he’d always told Tadashi everything.

“I just—I keep seeing the fire. And Callaghan, and—and I’m too late.”  
Tadashi put an arm around his brother’s shoulders, and Hiro collapsed against him.  
“Every night, I remember that—that you could have—you almost—and it would have been my fault. It would have been, because of me, and the Microbots. I know Callaghan made his own choices, but—but if I hadn’t…and the fire. It was all because of me, and you could have died.”

Tadashi nodded, saying nothing for a moment. “I’m right here, Hiro. I didn’t die, because of you. You and the others made it. You got me out. It’s ok.”

Hiro shrugged miserably.

“And,” Tadashi continued, his thoughts jumbled all together in this early morning search for comfort. “It wasn’t your fault. About the fire. Krei tech sponsored the thing, Callaghan admitted he’d always intended to set it on fire, to help ruin him. That wasn’t because of you, none of it was. You didn’t make me run in there, so that’s not on you either, and I know it doesn’t help the nightmares, but—we can’t change the past. But—if I could go back? I’d do it again.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Hiro’s eyes blazed, he stiffened and glared, his eyes overbright. “How can you say that? How can you even _say_ that?” he demanded. “I thought you were gone, I thought you were dead!”

Tadashi  shook his head. He’d given this a lot of thought, wondering about what-ifs without voicing them. “If I hadn’t run in there, what would have happened?”

“You’d have been safe,” Hiro snapped.

“Maybe. But…But Callaghan would have needed someone to reverse engineer the microbots. He’d have taken you, maybe both of us, but—he’d have taken you.”

“It should have been me.” Hiro whispered it, sounding defeated. “It was my invention. It was my fa-“

“If you say ‘fault’, I’m going to tickle you. And tell Go Go and Honey you’re still blaming yourself.” Tadashi took a deep breath. “I’d do anything to keep you from having to go through what I did, Hiro.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“But I will. I’m your big brother, that’s my job.”

Hiro blinked, then slowly gave a single, jerking nod. He wanted to say something snarky, or clever, something to ease the mood  and change the subject, but he was too tired. So he settled for a question instead.

“Will you read? Some more of the book? Unless—it’s just, I don’t think I can sleep.”

“Me neither,” Tadashi said, leaning back and grabbing the book they’d been reading for the last week off the nightstand, then shifting so he could stretch out his legs. He was glad for the excuse to keep the light on, to hold off on his own sleep.  
Hiro was not the only one plagued by nightmares.  


 


	2. Rivers Run

Aunt Cass didn’t wake them up, but she didn’t have to. The therapist that they’d both been tentatively seeing, a Ms. Salisbury, had suggested that they try to start some kind of routine, even if Tadashi still felt a little anxious out and about. After so long isolated, being out in the open was worrying, even with Cass and Hiro or the other around him. So every morning, one or more of the nerd herd stopped by for breakfast. Fred would bring comic books sometimes, or Go Go would bring whatever library books they’d put on hold, or Honey Lemon or Wasabi would offer the distractions they could. The chats were nice, and relaxing, something to look forward to.  
  
So Aunt Cass didn’t have to wake them up; the smell of bacon, fresh scones, and coffee wafting up from the apartment kitchen and the cafe below that did well enough. Hiro yawned, and rubbed his eyes. Tadashi was curled up beside him, holding a lap blanket close with one hand and the book, pages slightly more creased than before, with the other.  
This was the way of things. After finally abandoning the blanket and mattress pile after four days of sleeping there, with all their friends arranged around them, neither brother slept well alone. Even moving the screen so that the beds were visible didn’t work, though everyone seemed hopeful that things would return to normal in time.  
Hiro poked Tadashi’s arm.

“Bonehead, it’s breakfast time.”  
“Whuzzat?” Tadashi sat up slowly, but the sleep cleared from his eyes rapidly. “Smells like it’s morning.”  
“I’ll say. You need to shower,” Hiro grinned. It had taken time to get back to the light teasing, and sometimes comments made in fun still missed the mark, but slowly, everyone was easing back into something that seemed similar to normalcy.  Hiro still couldn’t shake the memories of last night’s conversation.  
How, he wondered, could Tadashi, who didn’t have a selfish bone in his body, say that he’d have gone into the fire again, even knowing everything. Hiro knew now, with morning’s clarity and the smell of breakfast in his nose, that Tadashi wanted to keep him safe, but it wasn’t fair. He could take care of himself, and he’d had to, those weeks. _You would have died a thousand times over without the others, and Baymax._ He scolded himself. Somehow, that didn’t matter _. I won’t let anything like this ever happen to Tadashi again._  
  


* * *

__  
  


Go Go, Fred, and Wasabi were all seated at the family table in the little kitchen, Mochi pawing at Fred’s leg and begging for scraps. Hiro sank into a seat and began heaping his plate, then one for Tadashi, who emerged from the stairway a moment later, trying to get his hair to lie flat.

“I can’t eat all that,” he protested as Wasabi joined Hiro’s efforts, putting a double-chocolate scone on the plate.   
“Just try,” Go Go muttered, trying to channel Honey’s sweetness into her own worry. Tadashi was still far too thin from his month long ordeal. “You won’t build your appetite back up if you don’t eat anything.”  
“I know.” Tadashi still wasn’t terribly hungry. His body had gotten used to scant meals, but Go Go watched him until he ate the scone, and some of the eggs. When he tried to put down the fork, she continued to watch him.   
“I’ll tell Honey Lemon you still aren’t eating enough.” She threatened lightly. That was enough for Tadashi, he ate the rest of his meal with mechanical steadfastness—it took some time, and he certainly felt full by the end of it, but that was better than the Mother Hen Wrath of Honey Lemon.  
  
Hiro and Fred chatted easily over their own meal, discussing the comic book Fred and brought over the day before, and how the current story arc looked like it might wrap up, while Fred refused to give away spoilers, and Wasabi kept shooing Mochi away before giving in and putting his near-empty plate on the floor for Mochi to lick. Mochi ignored the plate, leaping with surprising agility to land on Wasabi’s lap.  
“Why? What’s wrong with Go Go’s lap, or Tadashi’s?” Wasabi sked uselessly. “I _just_ got all the cat hair off these pants.”

Go Go snickered.  
“He likes you,” Aunt Cass said. “Morning rush is about over, but I know some of you have classes.”  
“Not me,” Go Go said. “Cancelled this morning. But I’ve got to get over to work, I’m taking Jenna’s shift.”  
Fred hopped up. “Presentations in my SF Poetry class today. Should be fun, since mine isn’t for a week.”  
Neither Fred nor Go Go escaped Aunt Cass’s hugs, and wasabi didn’t even try, still pinned by Mochi.

“Cat, I have class,” he groaned. Mochi licked his hand.  
“Mochi, down.” Cass snapped her fingers and pointed at Wasabi’s bacon-grease covered plate, still on the floor. Mochi blinked at her, and then at Wasabi, and finally stretched and slunk down under the table.  
Wasabi stood, shaking out his long legs. “That cat is a menace.”

“I know it,” Cass shook her head. “But he’s a sweetie. Don’t forget lunch!”  
They’d all tried to argue with Cass about her giving them free packed lunches, and Fred had tried to insist on paying for them, but Aunt Cass would not be moved on the subject. They’d brought both of her boys back to her, they were going to eat as many donuts, scones, sandwiches, and salads as they wanted. Even after GoGo had snapped that free food wasn’t something you passed up, just accept the gift, Honey and Wasabi had still faltered, but slowly and surely, Cass was wearing them down.  
Fred still snuck twenty dollar bills into the tip jar, but there wasn’t any way to stop that.

* * *

 

They had their routine. After breakfast, Hiro and Tadashi worked with Baymax, or read, leaning against the robot’s warm body. Hiro sometimes let Aunt Cass talk him into working down in the café, though she never pushed Tadashi. Honey Lemon had no afternoon classes except on Wednesdays and Mondays, so she would stop by later in the day if she could. With September faded into October, the weather cooled down, the sun set earlier, and now more often than not, mugs of hot chocolate waited at lunch or dinner. Tadashi had never realized before how much he loved Aunt Cass’s hot chocolate, flavored with cinnamon or nutmeg sometimes, bits of crushed candycane in December and stripes of caramel and chocolate syrup on top of whipped cream for Halloween. And for as long as he could remember, Halloween started the first of October and lasted through till the first of November, a month of ghost stories and pumpkin scones and cookies with little black cats and tombstones on them in hard icing.  
  
Sitting in the basement, enclosed but brightly lit, smelling of wood varnish and machine oil and safety, Tadashi leaned up against Baymax, glowing from within. Without warning, the robot started to rumble, and Tadashi sat up.

“Baymax? What’s wrong, are you—“ he wouldn’t have asked Before, if Baymax could be hurt, but now he wasn’t so certain. Hiro looked up from his nest on the couch where he was reading a Superman comic anthology Fred had given them.  
“I did not mean to cause you: distress. I am merely imitating the beneficial noise and vibration found in a cat’s purr. Your neurotransmitter levels suggested: a need for comfort.”  
“Oh,” Tadashi swallowed. “Thanks. Um. You can keep doing that, actually. It feels nice.”  
Mochi seemed half interested and half offended by the human-sized creature that had learned to purr, but over several power struggles for Baymax’s charging port, and several cans of tuna, the two had become friends. Mochi settled himself again beside the robot, reveling as much as Tadashi did in the warmth.  
  
Hiro didn’t settle back as easily. Tadashi tried to play it off, like he was fine, but every sudden noise, every dark space…He didn’t want to think about what would happen the first time the power went out, as it sometimes did in the winter months, when there were bad storms. At least it didn’t snow in this area. Hiro couldn’t shake the terrible memory of Tadashi’s voice a few days after the rescue, admitting that he’d almost forgotten what “warm” felt like. Even in the hottest part of late September, he’d worn long sleeves and pants.Tadashi wasn’t fine. Neither of them were.  
But they would be. Hiro was sure of it.   
“We’ll be ok,” he said finally.   
Tadashi nodded.  
It was something they both had to believe.

 

* * *

  
Go Go sighed as she finished her last delivery of the day, counting her tips. Not much, and pretty soon things were going to get harder, with slicker streets, maybe even ice once in a while. At least there wouldn’t been as many tourists until Christmas—but during tourist season she could set up with a rickshaw along the pier if she was short on cash.   
She debated biking up to the Lucky Cat, but decided against it. She had homework to get done, and if her scholarship was going to stay she had to make up for the missed work. Most of the professors had been fairly understanding, especially after the article in the Chronical about Callaghan not contesting the charges (“and he shouldn’t, he’s done enough harm, I don’t want to have to testify about anything,” she’d said. “I’d just want to break his nose again if he tried to skate it off.”) But she’d still missed a project write up, and a test or two, and lost out on a lot of delivery jobs while her leg healed.  
Homework and instant noodles it was. She’d go by the Lucky Cat in the morning. Maybe Cass could use an extra hand in the evenings, or early mornings, and she could work problem sets between taking orders and pulling bread from the ovens.  
Maybe.  
She turned her bike towards her apartment building, heading—well, not “home,” but close enough. 

* * *

 

Honey Lemon passed by the little chapel where she’d sough comfort so often before on her way home from the Lucky Cat, a loaf of pumpkin bread in a bag tucked under her arm. She loved this weather, everything just now turning crisp and cool, the sky pale grey streaked with reads and oranges and purples as the sun set. She paused in the doorway, looking in for a moment at the inviting candlelight, but shook her long hair out of her face. She’d stop in for the morning Mass tomorrow, following her own routine. She liked having a schedule, a plan. Not as much as Wasabi did, but it was nice.  
  
It was also nice not to be perpetually worried. Go Go was off her crutches and out of her cast, all the burns and broken bones and cuts had since healed. There were faint, silvery scars in some places, along her arm and one, fading even now, across her cheek. Battle wounds. When she’d skyped her family, her little sister had gasped at the sight, worse then. Honey Lemon didn’t mind it so much. For the first time since the fire, everyone seemed—not whole, but healing. And that was enough.  
  
She eased open her front door, her roommates sprawled across the little living room with their books and laptops, though at the sight of Honey and that sack from the Lucky Cat, they looked up and over eagerly.  
“I brought enough to share,” Honey promised.  
They’d been as eager as her family had for the story of what had happened, though she’d lied about most of it. She told herself it was to keep everyone safer, telling them she’d been walking past the Krei Tech campus opening by happenstance, been caught up in the chaos. They’d believed her, though Honey Lemon had taken extra care to keep her armor and her purse hidden. They didn’t know about it, and they didn’t know about what she’d been doing with it.  
Honey Lemon planned to keep it that way. It wasn’t until they’d gone to bed that she slipped outside, her long hair tucked up inside her helmet.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is Karine Polwart's Rivers Run because I love Karine Polwart right now.
> 
> And there was the beginnings of plot! Yay! Sorry this has taken me so long, my new job has been stressful (but it’s almost full time! So I’m not broke anymore! ) and I didn’t have this quite as planned out as I’d thought….still. chapter!  
> I’m going to aim for every other week with this, but we’ll see. I will try to keep the wait-time lower once we near the end and get into the major cliffhangers. Best thing to do is keep an eye on my tumblr, hedgiwithapen, and leave comments to keep me motivated!

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I know, it’s just short. Future chapters will be longer. Chapter title is from “Trip the Light” by Alicia Lemke.  
> Anyway, hope you’ll leave a comment. This story should be about as long as Only Pay off, or a little shorter, and I’m hoping to have it done by Christmas. It starts up more or less a month after the first story ends—feel free to ask any questions.  
> G’night, and see you all in a week, hopefully.


End file.
